Saturday, November 10, 2012

After Such a Long Wait We Expected a Better Movie Than This: Our Review of "Lincoln" (2012)

Rating:
PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief
strong language

Run Time:
2 hours, 29 minutes

Synopsis:
During what would be the final few months of his life, President Abraham
Lincoln (Day-Lewis) struggles with the politics and ethics of trying to end the
Civil War and get the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed
while avoiding the scenario of getting one result at the expense of the other.

REVIEW

Andrew:
We’re posting this a little late, but Sarah and I were able to catch an advance
screening of Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Lincoln, his long-awaited
biopic of Honest Abe. It has a cavalcade of stars, headlined by two-time
Academy Award-winer Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) in the title
role, along with supporting turns by Sally Field (The Amazing Spider-Man),
Tommy Lee Jones (Hope Springs), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper) and a whole lot
of other actors.

Sarah:
Just about anyone you can think of was in this movie.

A: Pretty
much! Obviously it’s a biographical film of Abraham Lincoln, but it only the
last few months of his life, particularly during the final weeks prior to the
House of Representatives voting to approve the 13th Amendment. It’s
a very small but important part of his life and his fight to end slavery.

So Sarah, while this was a movie that was in gestation for
quite some time (Spielberg has been trying to get this movie made for years
with Liam Neeson attached at one point to star as Lincoln), we haven’t been
totally jazzed to see it. A lot of that had to do with the fact that we weren’t
enamored with War Horse. We’re
probably in the minority about this, but when we saw the trailer for Lincoln,
it gave us flashbacks to War Horse didn’t it?

Do not be fooled by the trailer for Lincoln. Most of the movie takes place in a room like this or in the House of Republicans' chambers.

S: It
really did, and I went in to this movie with extremely low expectations. Like
you said, I didn’t like War Horse. It was pretty, I’ll give Lincoln
that, it was pretty…but I see this as 100% Oscar bait and not a whole lot more.

You know…it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It was like watching
a history lesson and I felt like…it’s definitely geared towards a specific
demographic, and one that I do not fall in.

A: What
about it exactly about it didn’t appeal to you?

S: It was
slow, for one thing. It is incredibly wordy and honestly? A lot of the time I
felt like I was being talked down to, and at other times it was redundant. It
reminded me of when we saw Cosmopolis and it was just like,
“Ok, we get, can we move on?”

It used extremely big words, and I’m sure they were used
back in that time period, but the overabundance of that kind of speech made me
question whether it was the best way to go about it.

I do have to admit that there are some powerhouse
performances in Lincoln, but I have to follow that up by saying I didn’t feel
like any of those powerhouse performances came from Daniel Day-Lewis.

A: Really?

S: Really.

A: Who
then?

S: I
thought Sally Field did an amazing job as Mary Todd Lincoln. I think she was
shown as a Mary Todd that we’ve read about but hadn’t really been shown in film
before. She’s always been shoved to the background and overshadowed by her
husband in stories about Lincoln; she’s never really talked about or shown in
anything I’ve seen. But she gets her spotlight this time, she gets a monologue,
and she gives a speech at one point that I think will put Field squarely in the
Best Supporting Actress competition at the Oscars.

A: The one
where Mary Todd breaks down about their son Robert joining the army?

S: Well
that one was good, too, but I was thinking of the one where the Lincoln’s are
holding a big to-do at the White House and while some senators and
representatives are waiting to be accepted into the house she
passively-aggressively rips them a new one. She had a couple of great
monologues that I give her hardcore credit for. I don’t know about you, but I
thought Sally Field was awesome.

Sarah thought Sally Field was incredible as Mary Todd Lincoln, whereas Andrew thought she was a little too over the top.

A: I’ll
agree with you on the aspect of the two biggest strengths of Lincoln
being the acting and the cinematography. It’s incredibly well-acted by all
involved and it’s shot beautifully by Janusz Kaminski.

I thought Field did a fine job and I’m sure she’ll get Oscar
attention, but she didn’t do a whole lot for me. There were times where I
thought she was a bit over the top, though I did like her scene when she’s
giving a heartfelt kick in the butt to Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and
some others.

I thought Daniel Day-Lewis did a great job. I thought he was
a perfect Lincoln – he looks like him, I don’t know what Lincoln sounded like
but…

S: I’m
sure not many people do, my dear [*laughs*]…

A: True,
but I’d have to imagine the filmmakers did their research so Day-Lewis knew how
to sound like. And you know…he’ll GET nominated for Best Actor, but I don’t
think he should win it.

S: I don’t
think so either.

A: And
it’s simply because he does a fine job but I think there have been better
performances this year in other films, most notably Joaquin Phoenix in The
Master. Yes, even after he came out and said he doesn’t care if he wins
an Oscar for his job because he’s thinks they’re stupid, but I think he
deserves it more.

S: Yeah,
that was a really strong performance, too. Can probably say that one WASN’T
Oscar bait if he said that about the Oscars.

A: So, I
thought there were plenty of fine performances here. Tommy Lee Jones does a
fine job as Republican Congressional Leader Thaddeus Stevens, David Strathairn
(The
Bourne Legacy) did a nice job as Secretary of State William
Seward…overall there were a lot of good performances, but no GREAT ones. There
wasn’t anyone who blew me away.

And I think the script really hampered a lot of that. Like
you, I thought the script was overwrought, it was too talky, and I think the
biggest mistake they made in the entire film was constantly giving Lincoln this
little folksy anecdotes and speeches. He rambles!

S: Oh my
gosh, he rambles like a champ! And maybe that’s what he was actually like, when
historians looked back through his journals or other people’s accounts of him
they found out that he rambled and liked to tell stories. But here…I don’t
know…

A: Listen,
there are a lot of great scenes where he’s giving these anecdotes and a lot of
the time they’re pretty humorous because Daniel Day-Lewis does a great job of
making him seem like a real person. The best example I can think of is one
scene where he and a bunch of his military personnel are waiting in a war room
to hear how a siege on a Confederate fort went, and he just starts telling a
story about Ethan Allen going to the bathroom at Fort Ticonderoga. It was a great
scene, he does a great job in it, it was funny, but there are too many
instances like that.

S: And I
honestly think they were trying to bring in that human element to a man that
history has rightly idolized as an amazing human. And yes, he was an amazing
human, but I think the filmmakers were trying to humanize him too much by
turning him into the grandfather who always has a parable about something.

A: Yes!
They lessened the impact of those stories he tells by overdoing it. Hell, the
end of the movie ends with a speech Lincoln gave at some point and I was
totally glossy-eyed because it was like, “This is the twelfth speech he’s given
in three hours!”

You see this look he has on his face? He's about to tell another story. He does that a lot in this film.

S: I get
what they were trying to go for, but it took us from a high and ended us on a
flat note. Might be mixing my metaphors there and I don’t care.

A:
Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner absolutely butchered the end of this
movie, in my opinion. There was a perfect end point…

S: Yes!
When Lincoln is walking down the hall on the way to the play! During that
entire scene I was pleading for them to end it, because everyone knows what’s
coming up next!

A: It
would have been a total cliché to end it like that, but it would have been
fine! Because it was the perfect spot to end it. Instead they continue through
his death and end it just after that.

S: And
that scene where Lincoln’s body is laying in that bed…wait. Spoiler alert,
people, Lincoln dies at the end! Ok, so that shot where his body is lying in
the bed…there’s a drawing of it that I have in my mind like that scene.

A: I’m
sure there is, it’s a big part of his story. But here’s the main thing for me
with the ending, and I’m not going to say exactly what they do or don’t do with
the assassination scene, but I wasn’t crazy with the choice they made in
showing it. What they focused on drove me insane. It just didn’t feel right and
it felt forced. I didn’t like it.

S: I
didn’t like it either. There’s really not a whole lot that I liked about this
movie from a standpoint of it being a Steven Spielberg movie. I agree with you
that it’s beautifully shot and the cinematography is typical Spielberg.

He has a ginormous cast, which sometimes can be a detriment
but at other times he’s able to pull it off. Introduction scenes were always
kind of fun because we would be like, “Oh look it’s so-and-so!” But when you
spread your cast too thin, when there are so many big names and everyone of
note needs to have a line, I feel like it shortchanges those actors and their
characters.

A: To that
point, another weakness of the story in my eyes – and granted it’s the entire
plot almost – is the actual day the House of Representatives voted on the 13th
Amendment. They needed to tighten that baby up. Oh my God, we did not need to
hear or see what everyone’s vote was going to be. You’ve introduced us to the
important swing votes. Focus on them. Everybody else is understood because
they’ve been talking about it the whole movie.

S: And
kind of just like Argo, we know what happens in the end.

A: That’s
a great comparison!

S: We know
how both movies ultimately ended, but with Argo there was so much tension with
the way they built it up! With Lincoln we knew that the amendment was going to
be passed, can we please figure out a way to either make that actual event more
exciting or suspenseful whatsoever?

A: That’s
a great point. Spielberg tries to create some tension and some drama out of it
and totally fails.

S: There
are things that you can build up to that the audience already knows is going to
happen, but something like a law being passed, one of the most famous and
important legal proceedings in the history of our country and you fail at
building any dramatic tension out of it? You pretty much just failed at the
point of your movie.

A: I
couldn’t agree more. Even though the real point of the movie is to show the
kind of man Lincoln was during those last few days and how he, as a tactician
and politician, was able to get such a tough thing taken care of, the
filmmakers go to great lengths to make the actual vote a big deal and it kind
of flops. At least we think so.

But I will say one thing, and this was a big thing for you
going in to the movie, was John Williams’ score. What did you think of it?

S: Oh
gosh, honestly I don’t even care. I’m a huge proponent of a score’s effect on a
movie. I feel like it’s one of the most important things for a movie to have,
and I felt like Lincoln’s was completely lost. I didn’t find that it helped, I
didn’t find that it hindered. I just found it to be a generic John Williams
score, and I hate that. But it was what it was.

A: I sort
of agree with you – it didn’t hurt, it didn’t strongly support it in any way.
It was just kind of there.

S: It was
there for the sake of being there.

A: Will it
get nominated for an Oscar? Probably. It’s John Williams. The man got nominated
twice last year for Pete’s sake.

S: And
while we didn’t The Adventures of Tintin, we did see War Horse and I think it
had a better score than this one.

You know, we’re really hard on this movie because when it
comes to Steven Spielberg you have to hold him to a higher standard than
everyone else, and he lets us down…

A: For the
second year in a row. Ok, so what is our final assessment of Lincoln?

S: I would
not see this one in theatres unless you have three hours to just blow on a
history lesson.

A: It is
long, that’s another problem it has.

S: But if
you’re a history buff, go ahead and see it. If you’re a cinephile, go ahead and
see it. If you care about the Oscars, it’s going to get nominated, go see it.

A: But if
you’re none of those things, don’t waste your time. Don’t get us wrong, this
isn’t a BAD movie. It’s just not what we were expecting and we found it boring,
which is the worst thing you can say about a film.

4 comments:

I had no idea Liam Neeson was once attached to play Lincoln. Oh man we could have seen him kick some ass and maybe the movie wouldn't have felt so long. I think it's great that both Argo and Lincoln, you know the outcome of either story, but it's cool to know that Ben Affleck told his story better than Speilberg. Wouldn't it be cool if Affleck won over Speilberg for best director? Great review

And It's true! Many many moons ago when Spielberg was first trying to get this off the ground, Neeson was the name attached for a while. And while Day-Lewis does a great job, we can't help but think that Liam freaking Neeson would've been a more badass version of The Great Emancipator.

Good review. The movie may not keep you emotionally-invested, but Daniel Day's performance is so enthralling, that it's just way too difficult to take yourself out of this material and not feel the need to stick by it for over 2 hours. It's a long movie, but it's worth the ride.